Networks, such as the Internet, have become increasingly important to corporations, government entities, non-profit organizations and private parties. Millions of individuals may access the Internet to conduct business transactions, for educational purposes, to communicate with other users via, for example, email, and for entertainment, such as online gaming. For certain of these transactions it may be desirable that a destination device know the identity or status, such as health, of a source device before accepting information, such as packets, from the source device.
There is a need for techniques that allow a source device to be identified and/or authorized before allowing the source device to send packets to a destination device. These techniques should not require that a destination device, a source device, or another network device operating on behalf of the destination device, know the topology of the network from which the packet was received.